1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information handling systems and more particularly to a navigation system for use with information handling systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One issue relating to information handling systems is navigation across the various items installed or accessed via the information handing systems. Many information handling system manufacturers install third-party applications which may not be familiar to the end user. For example, a user may desire to edit photographs via the information handling system but may not be familiar with how to access these capabilities (e.g., via a Photoshop type application or a Windows Picture Viewer application, both of which provide editing capabilities).
Another issue relating to information handling systems is that software developers and computer companies often focus on delivering software as a function of brand name in which the end user launches a particular application or tool. An issue relating to this approach is that customers are not always familiar with an application name due to branding and/or contextually inappropriate application names. If a user launches a parent application, features neither may nor may not be easily accessible or discoverable.
It is known to provide an information handling system with a preinstalled navigation program (often referred to as a launching program or a dock application). Certain of these navigation programs can require a user to exit the operating system environment (e.g., Windows operating system environment). Examples of known navigation programs includes the Apple Dock application, which launches a parent application from the desktop; the iPhone/iPod Touch application, which allows a user to select a tile which launches a parent application, the Dell Dock application, which launches a parent application from the desktop, the Dell TouchZone application, which launches a parent application from the desktop, the Hewlett Packard TouchSmart Center application, which launches a parent application in a separate Windows environment; and, the Advanced Micro Devices Fusion Media Explorer (FME) application, which launches a parent application in a separate Windows environment. With many of these applications, when the user is within the parent application, the user can then access content. E.g., the parent application may be a web browser application and the content may be a particular website that is accessed via the web browser.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a navigation system which provides tiles that are easily identifiable and content-driven vs. context-driven. Also, it is desirable to provide a navigation system that includes an expanded view/tile paradigm. Also, it is desirable to provide a navigation system that allows users to interact with the native operating system environment of the information handling system.